Perfection
by Caladria101
Summary: [SJ] He wasn't that kind of person, to open up like that..Concrit is for life...


He found her sat on the edge of his dock, bare feet dangling in the water as she regarded her toes thoughtfully. She didn't give any sign that she'd noticed his approach, though he was fairly sure she knew exactly where he was.

He sat next to her, cross legged and awkward, and waited for her to acknowledge his presence.

She looked at him, twisting to lean on one hand so that she was half facing him, squinting in the face of a dying sunset.

"Hey."

"Carter," he replied, hands unnaturally still as if waiting for something. And in a way, he was.

She looked away, awkward. "Did we leave it too late?" she asked finally, not looking at him.

He sighed, glancing uneasily over the water, frowning, before he turned back to regard her face. This was something that he'd avoided, something that for the past ten years he hadn't had to deal with. "You tell me, Carter," he said finally.

"In other words, it's all my fault," she said, sounding bitter even to her own ears.

Images assailed him. Pete. Leaving it in the room. Leaving it in the room even when it was threatening to break out. Yes, he'd let her dictate the whys and the wherefores, but he couldn't say he'd been entirely blameless there. He hadn't said. He wasn't that kind of person, to open up like that. Sara had told him that far too often for him not to believe its validity.

He looked at her, no trace of humour in his eyes, for once. "You were right to try," he said simply. He could never blame her for that. Not when he'd nothing to offer her. "Too damn perfect to make mistakes like that."

Her eyes flashed angrily. "Just… don't say that," she said tightly, offering no further explanation.

He met her eyes squarely then, neither of them looking away, backing down for the first time since he'd joined her. "Fine. You _suck_ at the whole people thing, you get wrapped in your science thing to avoid it, you second guess yourself way too often and you try far too hard to be the model officer. And, oh yeah, you don't put sugar in your coffee. Happy?"

She backed down first, contemplating her hands that had held a ring in the not too distant past. She sighed. "I don't know," she admitted quietly. "How should I be feeling?" Another silence took hold of them before she glanced back at him. "And for your information, there's a point at which you're adding coffee to your sugar."

He let out what could have been a badly-repressed snort of laughter, his mouth curling into a half grin. Another moment passed.

"Just so you know… I suck at the whole people thing, too," he admitted, picking up a small stone before skipping it across the lake. He watched it, silently counting the skips then fixing his gaze on the place it sunk.

She shook her head in disagreement. "People you're good at," she amended. "It's _you_ you suck at."

"Feelings," he argued.

"_Sharing_ feelings," she clarified; her resolution to keep things serious fast disappearing as she began to smile.

"Sharing _my_ feelings?" he suggested almost light-heartedly.

She shrugged. "Changing the subject away from your feelings is something you're pretty good at," she commented.

"And here I was thinking we were talking about yours," he said dryly, a slight defensive barrier back in place. Joking he could do. Happy clown, sad clown, yada, yada. He needed her to know that he'd never be as open as she'd want him to be, and that there were some things he'd never share, no matter what happened. But he couldn't find the words to let her know.

Another silence built up around them, not particularly threatening, but not comfortable, either. The fear of breaking it was more the fear of what might be said.

"Do we even know each other?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, could you tell me what my favourite colour is?"

He looked at her for a second, digesting this new line of inquiry, before wordlessly shaking his head.

"We know each other… far better than most people…" she'd deliberately avoided using _couple_ as if it was an explosive, he noted… "ever do or ever will. But we don't know normal stuff."

He looked at her again for a long moment, turning her words over in his mind. "Peridot," he said finally.

"What?"

"My favourite colour. Peridot. Kind of a yellow-y green." At her dubious look he said, "It's nice!"

She laughed. "Pink," she admitted. "I always wanted to hate it, though."

This time he laughed – that was just a very... Carter-ish thing to do.

She withdrew her feet from the water, stretching them out by his side to allow them to dry, leaning back on her fingers. He could… he could just reach out those few centimetres and touch her, and there would be no more talking. And it was so tempting with her rolled up jeans and her bare legs to forget the complications. But that would be too easy in the short run, and too hard, and painful in the long. And the fear of not gaining her as a lover was nothing compared to the fear of losing her as a friend.

So he drummed his fingers restlessly on his own thigh, looking at her looking at him.

"We gonna be okay?" And this time, uncharacteristically, it was him asking, and seeking her reassurance rather than her quick-fix solution.

"I don't know." The words might have been the same as before, but the tone was different, somehow. "Guess we'll find out."

Silence drew out.

But not the silences of before – the awkward, tense ones that begged to be filled with clamour. This one was more comfortable. Maybe there was hope after all.

"Peridot? Seriously?"

"Hey! Do _not_ mock the wonder that it is!"

Hell, they had a chance after all. Who'd a thunk it?


End file.
